Washington, DC welcomes newest Green Lane on L Street

By David Cranor
Washington D.C. blogger

November 13, 2012

For the past few weeks, those who use bicycles to navigate downtown have been excitedly watching as Washington's District Department of Transportation(DDOT) installs the city's latest green lane. As highlighted in this earlier post on the L Street cycle track, DDOT "will install 1.37 miles of "cycle track," bike lane and sharrows from 11th Street, NW to Pennsylvania Ave NW crossing most of Downtown's Central Business District with a continuous and protected green lane. The cycle track will cover most of the distance, running from 12th Street NW to New Hampshire Ave."

The lane is still not complete, which has been the source of some confusion, but featured below is a video of what the partially completed project looked like on a recent Saturday afternoon. It starts with the bike lane portion and then continues with the cycle track. 

Since then, the work has been extended east (the direction of travel), more markings have been added to the pavement, and safe-hit flex posts have been erected to the entrances. In addition, DDOT has been working to educate both drivers and cyclists about how to best use the new cycletrack. When parked cars stay out of the way, the lane is a quick and enjoyable way to safely traverse downtown. Once the lane is finished, and users have become accustomed to it, there will be less parking and driving in the cycletrack and less complaining that it's an attempt to squeeze drivers off the road. 

L Street Cycletrack in Washington DC from Green Lane Project on Vimeo.